Hare and hand

 

    The Costa Book Awards announced their category winners last night, and I was very pleased to see that the novel prize went to Maggie O'Farrell for The Hand That First Held Mine, one of my favourite books of last year. The biography prize was won by Edmund de Waal for The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance, a book I have yet to read but one about which Mr. C. (among many others) is raving.

    There are details of all the winners here, but I was particularly struck by this story concerning Jason Wallace who won the Children's Book category for Out of Shadows - all credit to him for persevering in the face of so many rejections.

     Which book will be the overall winner? We shall find out on January 25th.